The Ancients: Origins of Beer - Podcast Review

Hey everyone,

If any of you are into podcasts, I came across a cool one today that I thought I'd share with the club. The name of the show is "The Ancients" and the name of the episode is "Origins of Beer". I really liked it, maybe you all will too. It's about 50 minutes long, but if you skip through the ads then it's more like 45 💪. But, if you don't get a chance to check it out, I tried to remember some of the highlights:

The guest's name is Tate Paulette, and he is a beer archaeologist (can you imagine that job?!?! Man, why didn't I think of that during my 5th grade career day?!?!?!? Anyway, he wrote a book called "In the Land of Ninkasi, the History of Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia". In case anyone would like to read it.

There is considerable evidence of beer making as early as 3000 B.C., and limited evidence of it as early as 5000-6000 B.C.!! To me that is amazing. Although, with all this historical precedent, you'd think I wouldn't be so bad at brewing 😩

There is a Goddess of Beer, and her name is Ninkasi. There is an ancient drinking song paying homage to her. And apparently she was a brewer herself. I plan to learn this song and pay her homage as well!

Beer is mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh (written sometime between 2150 and 1400 B.C.) Apparently a human woman offers Gilgamesh lots of beer, which he of course accepts and loves. She offers him other things as well but I'll keep this thing G-rated.

The earliest written documents ever found, around 3000 B.C. contained beer related writings in them as well. It appears to be an ingredients list. Thank you to whoever did the shopping back then, for keeping such organized shopping lists.

There was at least one community of about 50 households where each house was a homebrewer. I imagine that the community either loved each other or had huge royal rumbles every brew day and beer competition. For all we know, that's the reason wars started.

There was another community that used a cold mash process in their beer brewing. I thought that was rather interesting because I have always thought that heat and moisture are what creates the fermentable sugars. But who am I to argue with our forefathers and mothers?

They also developed this brilliant and innovative (in my opinion) invention way back when. They created a straw that had different levels of these flap-like things on the inside of the straw. The purpose of these was to filter out the solid material while people drank, so they wouldn't experience chunky beer. Pretty smart!

There were taverns and commercial breweries throughout as well. And the way the archaeologists first discovered this was by ancient tax documents! I'm no historian, but I had no idea taxation goes back to 3000 B.C. or more! How sad! As Ron Swanson says, "There's only one bad word... Taxes"

They also found writing in the Code of Hammurabi, where commercial brewers were bartering beer for other supplies they needed.

Ok, last one, and this one is sad: no hops!!! 😭😭 Their ingredients were slightly different. They had barley and wheat, and they performed intentional yeast fermentation as opposed to wild or natural yeast fermentation. But they didn't have any hops. They used certain herbs and spices to develop the aroma and bitterness profiles. They also used date syrup as a sweetener.

I hope this wasn't too long. Just wanted to share the cool stuff I learned today, and the name of the podcast and book if you all want to get more details. I'm heading up to Minnesota next week for a beer tour... err doctor appointment. So after I get back I will share my assessment of the midwest beer quality. I will do extensive research for you all because that's what heroes do. Looking forward to the next meeting 😃

Dave